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View Poll Results: Do the wealthy have too much power in the United States?

Re: Do the wealthy have too much power in the United States?

Originally Posted by Dovkan

It does build factories, since many LOVE to say the USSR was a example of how evil socialism is, well, guess what. Look at the industrialization they did. Even though I acknowledge the USSR is far from socialism, especially under stalin.

LOL

The collectivists destroyed their country, left thousands of square miles of land uninhabitable, and left pollution so virulent, generations to come will be impacted by it's presence. In China, pollution is so staggering they are moving cities in an attempt to get away from it.

Re: Do the wealthy have too much power in the United States?

Originally Posted by Dovkan

A state existed, although the state essentially put no regulations on capitalism, we're talking about anarcho-capitalism here.
Capitalists without regulation?
Hong Kong
Pre-regulation America
The Congo
Haiti
Nicaragua, to name a few.

it was a trick question.... it's like asking " when did unicorns exist? "

unregulated capitalism has never existed.... unregulated capitalism, like the "free market", exists only as an academic theory.....the same goes for the pure brand of Communism you belive in.

Re: Do the wealthy have too much power in the United States?

Originally Posted by Dovkan

The way the system works, you have to work to survive by acquiring money, you don't really "agree," when 80% of the world makes less then $10 a day, if people could just switch to different jobs so easily, I think they would to "balance" it out, no, it needs regulation. Wages in terms of capital wouldn't exist under communism. The freedom is ridiculous, you think if people could actually get a decent deal, 80% of the world wouldn't live on less then $10 a day. Really? They won't take the job? They have no ****ing choice, money, acquired from capitalists, is used to buy food, distributed by capitalists, jesus christ. It does exploit people, have you seen Haiti? Most third world countries? China? India? You keep stating henry ford, when the majority of capitalists don't even follow his mentality, it's why capitalists exploit laborers in countries without regulations.

I think it's funny that you blame capitalism for Chinese income inequality, when the most freest market regions and civil freedom regions have the highest stable growth with the least amount of income inequality within China.

Also, a very funny fact that with liberalized trade we also see human transportation cost completely reDuced, so with things like India we are seeing massive GDP growth because the ability for pEople to go from India to places like untied states to take advantage of the education system to learn things like engineering etc etc and then bringing back the higher skills to India and developing infrastructure. Thus, pushing standard of living, as well as individual wealth up.

The reason people make less then 10$ a day is because central planned economic structure devalue currencies in order to trade at a cheaper cost. This also ties into the fact that aid and trade internationally come with restrictions on what is proDuced in developing nations. So, if we create a loan to a country in Africa and tell them they have to trade us X amount of flowers at Z price, what happens is it boosts their economy but restricts them on diversity of their production. This is where develOping nations can not grow an economy, and it's not because we've opened free trade but because of restrictions.

Re: Do the wealthy have too much power in the United States?

So the desired goal is to re-distribute wealth, thereby eliminating any control?

Just a few questions:
1. How much money does it take before you are considered "rich"? AND, Who decides this?
2. How much control is acceptable and how much is "too much"?
3. Is my vote considered "control"?

Who decides these things?
If I am going to be forced to join Utopia, I need to know who is in power.

Re: Do the wealthy have too much power in the United States?

Originally Posted by Henrin

You know, the use of collective owned property must be controlled. You can't just let people take whatever they want from the property, so what happens is that someone must control the amount people are allowed to use. Since collectively owned property suffers from poor upkeep someone will also have to make order people to take certain actions so situation like the dust bowl don't happen. Guess what was just established? That hierarchical thing that communists oppose.

Collectively owned property in regards to the means of production, also, who do you think would stop those people? Other people, and you have to realize the motive for that really would have no logical reason, their is no for profit motive. No one controls what people use, right now, a massive surplus is occurring under capitalism, everything would have a use value, discussing the hypothetical realities of what a communist society would be like is ridiculous. Poor upkeep? In reference to the USSR? I wonder why, not like those people didn't have a democracy, or actual ownership of the property, hence the totalitarian state under stalin.. Oh, you keep making defenses of the hypothetical anarcho capitalism, we will never escape this void.

Re: Do the wealthy have too much power in the United States?

Originally Posted by Dovkan

We already produce enough food to comfortably feed 10 billion people, a method of distributing with the mindset of use value and not exchange value would work, however, the capitalist influence on food production is to great as it stands.

We produce that much under capitalism, a flexible system, with communism, a system that can not expand or retract we can not produce that much with out force fRom a state

Re: Do the wealthy have too much power in the United States?

Originally Posted by DA60

No they do not have too much power.

If the staggeringly ignorant masses would get a brain when they voted and stopped voting for the perfect candidate and only voted for candidates on the important issues then the rich would be powerless in elections.

But because the masses are SO staggeringly ignorant, they keep electing the most pathetic candidates imaginable - whether it is for municipal, state or national votes.

The rich are only as powerful as the masses allow them to be.

It's like political campaigns. The ignorant masses actually buy into campaign adds, whereas the more informed/intelligent realize they are pure hockum and should be ignored. And the ignorant masses actually get much of their news from mainstream tv...which of course means they are getting nothing but filtered swill from whichever side of the aisle that network supports. And even the networks that do not support one side are so mind-numbingly stupid that getting news from them is a total waste of time.
Or there are the types that wait for the debates to make up their minds and then usually pick the one that 'seems' the best for the job...almost totally separate from where they actually stand on the key issues.
Or there are the types that think of themselves as 'patriots' and will blindly follow whoever is in charge...when in reality all they are is little, trained minions.
And then there are the worst type of ignorant mass...the type that actually think they are intelligent/informed. So all they do is close their minds to everything that does not fit their views...which means they stay ignorant - and arrogant (there are a TON of those types on here, imo).

Anyone that thinks the rich have too much power in America have no idea what they are talking about. The power is right there for the masses to take...if only they were not so clueless and/or gullible and/or politically lazy.

And even if the rich do/will some day have to much power - it is the masses who are to blame for giving it to them.

That is largely true, but overly simplistic. It is primarily the uninformed apathetic centrists, AKA "swing voters," that are susceptible to being influenced by shallow news reporting and campaign advertising. People are only as informed as their educational background and access to quality news reporting. This is why the states without large cities and more people without a college education tend to have voters making poor decisions. Working people with families have little time or energy to seek out information, so they are not entirely to blame.